I still don’t know where we are. The Wild Seas has thousands of islands. With how long we flew and how fast a dragon can travel, we could be anywhere.
Roiven still has to obey me. Doesn’t he? He hasn’t ignored a command, but the whole ‘throwing me out the window’ business has me on edge. I need to make sure the enchantment hasn’t somehow broken. It’s the only advantage I have in dealing with this dragon.
He clearly wants me to think he’s bound. I’m sure he’d follow an easy order, whether or not he had to.
“Kneel, and tell me something you don’t want me to know.”
The witch’s orange eyes snap back to me, and his lips curl down. Roiven sinks back to his knees on the hard black stone.
“I had nightmares after I thought I killed you,” he mutters.
“Good. You deserved it.” But there’s an uneasy feeling in my stomach. In my bones I know that this is wrong, taking away somebody’s free will, but I need to know he’s under my power, because it’s the only safety that I have right now.
I’m still not convinced.
“Slap yourself.” I hear Roiven’s hard exhale.
The moment his palm connects to his tattooed cheek, the dragon lunges.
“No!” Roiven shouts. He bursts back up, launching himself toward me, arms outstretched. His back thumps against my chest, shielding me from the dragon. I get a mouthful of his hair.
Sava stops with her jaws a foot from us. Her head alone is taller than I am. The dragon’s sulphuric breath makes my stomach turn.
Roiven stands pressed against me, his arms thrown out to either side, as if to say she’ll have to eat him too. That, more than anything, convinces me. Nobody sane would put themselves between an angry dragon and its prey.
Roiven is still mine to command. If the dragon thought bringing us here would change that, she was wrong.
“Take me back to the Bluff,” I order him. “Now.”
12
Roiven keeps staring at the dragon. As if she’s saying something to him.
They may have stolen me from the Bluff and dragged me halfway across the Wild Seas, but Roiven is bound to my command. He’ll convince her to take us back.
He turns abruptly. His strong arms wrap around my waist, pulling me close against his chest. My breath catches, hating the way my heart beats faster with his warmth against my skin. He shouldn’t be touching me. I shove against him.
“What are youdoing?”
My feet leave the damp stone and he tosses me over his shoulder like I weigh nothing. What is it with this man and picking me up without warning? My body, still sore, aching, and numb from being carried through the night sky in a dragon’s claws, is slow to react. I twist, and manage to land a clipped blow against the back of his head with my elbow.
Roiven grunts in pain and yanks me into the ocean.
I fall off the rock and into the water too fast to react. It’s no gradual slope. It’s a straight drop into the sea.
Panic swells up and I thrash as the sea overtakes me. Every inch of my skin crawls and screams in disgust. I swallow a gulp of salt water and come up hacking, pushing myself out of Roiven’s muscular arms. He lets me go.
I thrash, and begin to sink.
There’s no voice. Not this time. But I can feel it, feel the presence below the deep. Its mind isn’t on me, but I can senseit. A hot sickness burns in my chest like I’ve been lit on fire from the inside. An invisible tether connects me to something in the ocean.
“Gods, no,” I wail, reaching for the island’s edge so I can pull myself up.
The swell shoves my body against Roiven’s, pushing us both against the rocky edge of the island, then relents, then shoves again. I dip below for a moment, thrashing but unable to keep my head lifted. Roiven’s hands find my waist. His fingers dig in over the fabric of my shirt as he pulls me up. Between the man I hate most and the sea, he’s actually preferable. The back of my head thunks against his collarbone as the ocean shoves me into him again.
I kick free, grab for the rocks, and begin to haul myself out. The attention of thethingin the water turns toward me, as if slowly noticing I’m here. A wave of dizziness threatens to pull me under.
“I was right,” Roiven rasps.
